Behavioral similarity as a reinforcer for preschool children.
Copying a preschooler’s action right away can reinforce that action without any extra rewards.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched preschoolers play in a lab room. An adult copied the child’s exact move, like stacking a block or tapping a toy. No candy, praise, or stickers were given. The only consequence was the adult doing the same thing.
Three small experiments ran. Each time the adult imitated, the child later copied that response more often. The set-up showed that simple behavioral similarity can act like a reinforcer all by itself.
What they found
Kids kept choosing the move the adult had copied. The effect showed up right away and lasted across trials. No food or praise was needed; the match alone strengthened the behavior.
This suggests that being copied feels good to young children and makes them repeat the action.
How this fits with other research
Escalona et al. (2002) and Ishizuka et al. (2016) later saw the same trick work with preschoolers with autism. Angelica saw more touching; Yuka saw more vocal turn-taking. These studies extend the 1975 finding to a new population and new responses.
Steinman (1970) came first. It showed that children imitate even when only some responses earn tangible rewards. Gladstone et al. (1975) narrowed the question: is the match itself the reward? Their answer was yes.
Dal Ben et al. (2019) offers a twist. Kids kept using passive voice after hearing it, even when adults praised active voice. Both labs show automatic reinforcement, but Dal Ben points to sound-to-sound matching while W et al. points to action-to-action matching.
Why it matters
You can strengthen a child’s behavior simply by copying it. No tokens, no praise, just immediate imitation. Try it in play, circle time, or early echoic training. Watch the child’s response rate rise, then fade yourself out as natural social contingencies take over.
Get CEUs on This Topic — Free
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ on-demand CEUs including ethics, supervision, and clinical topics like this one. Plus a new live CEU every Wednesday.
Imitate the child’s toy play within one second and note if the child does it again.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Three experiments evaluated whether behavioral similarity provided by an adult could serve as a reinforcer for the modelling behavior of four preschoolers. In each experiment, sessions consisted of two kinds of trials: (1) experimenter-modelled trials, when the child's imitation of modelled motor responses was reinforced with praise and tokens, and (2) child-modelled trials when experimenter imitation of child-modelled responses was contingent upon the child's modelling one of three alternative responses: operation of a ball, horn, or clicker. Experiment I showed that the children consistently modelled whichever responses the experimenter imitated. Experiment II determined whether that performance was due to differences in the amount of experimenter behavior following imitated versus nonimitated child models or to experimenter imitation. Neither reducing nor increasing the amount of experimenter behavior following the children's nonimitated models altered their modelling of imitated responses. Experiment III evaluated whether experimenter imitation of child models was a reinforcer because the child's imitative responses were reinforced on experimenter-modelled trials. In Experiment III, the children's nonimitation of experimenter-models was reinforced with praise and tokens on a schedule of differential reinforcement of other behavior, yet they continued to model experimenter-imitated responses on child-modelled trials. These results indicate behavioral similarity was reinforcing, though no conditioning history through which it acquired that function was demonstrated.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1975 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1975.23-357